Movie review: Water for Elephants’ a three-ring snore

It’s tempting to call the romantic circus that’s “Water for Elephants” the greatest snore on Earth, but that would be discounting the superb work Christoph Waltz displays as the ringmaster from hell.

Al Alexander

It’s tempting to call the romantic circus that’s “Water for Elephants” the greatest snore on Earth, but that would be discounting the superb work Christoph Waltz displays as the ringmaster from hell.

Every bit as funny and creepy as he was in his Oscar-winning turn in “Inglourious Basterds,” Waltz oozes evil at every opportunity, tossing roustabouts from moving trains, beating elephants senseless with a goad and constantly reminding his lovely wife, Marlena, that she was white trash when he found her and remains white trash beneath her elegant Jean Harlow exterior.

Whenever he flashes that sarcastic grin, shivers erupt as you immediately get edgy, fearing for every man, woman and animal that dares cross his path. You never know what heinous act his August will commit next. In other words, he’s everything good about being bad.

The rest of the cast, including Reese Witherspoon as Marlena and Robert Pattinson from “Twilight” as the boy veterinarian she longs to play doctor with, is bad, too. Literally. Not a one capable of generating anything close to a spark. They’re more like Depression Era mannequins sporting the latest in forlorn expressions and faces so pretty, you dare not touch.

Like the movie, they’re more relic than alive, posing instead of feeling. Eventually, it gets to the point where you pray that August will poke them hard with his handy elephant goad just to stir them –– and us –– from slumber.

I’m betting that’s not what fans of Sara Gruen’s best-selling novel had in mind when they heard “Water for Elephants” was being made into an Oscar-baiting movie. They were expecting longing, passion and heat, elements nowhere to be found in a three-ring ruckus over whether or not two fresh-faced actors can garner enough adulation from the unwashed masses to find happiness atop the box office charts.

That seems to be the only motivation for director Francis Lawrence (“I Am Legend”), as he methodically goes through the paces worrying about aesthetics and décor more than hot, sweaty flesh. But then he is stuck with two actors in Witherspoon and Pattinson that are so plastic you’d swear they are being sold without genitalia.

Yes, they’re the Big Top version of Barbie and Ken. See Reese all curvy and svelte under her undulating mass of platinum-blond locks and slinky costumes. See Robert all sad-eyed and hunky with his raggedy duds and perfectly molded anguished expression. He’s hurting, darn it! And so is she.

Their forbidden love is doomed, as is any hope of people giving a damn about whether either lives or dies. But that doesn’t stop them from wasting two hours of a ticket-buyer’s time as they attempt to pass off a Vanity Fair photo shoot as a movie.

It begins with Pattinson’s Jacob, a Cornell vet student, learning that his parents have died and left him broke in the middle of the Depression. It’s 1931, and there’s nothing for a poor boy to do but hop a freight and pray he’ll become the next Woody Guthrie. Fortuitously, the train Jacob jumps on has Benzini Bros. Circus painted on its side. And what could be a better job for an aspiring vet than tending to all the lions, tigers and elephants in the Benzini menagerie.

Well, Reese’s Marlena for one. She catches his eye immediately with her leading-lady looks and bubble-butt tush. She’s also the star of the circus, although it’s not clear why, given that all she does is look sexy while seductively straddling a horse or elephant. Certainly no match for the aerial artists and lion tamers, but then none of them has an Oscar resting on their mantels back home.

Anywho, Barbie and Ken, err, Marlena and Jacob, can’t resist exchanging longing looks. At one point, they even touch while dancing, God forbid. And all this platonic foreplay doesn’t go unnoticed by August, who you suspect secretly longs for his wife to dally with the dullard just so he can smash his young rival’s pretty face to a pulp.

In the meantime, August will have to be happy just torturing a defenseless elephant, the ironically named Rosie, that has somehow brought Jacob and Marlena closer and closer together.

What ensues is beyond predictable, not to mention ludicrous. And that would be OK if the movie ever gave a reason to care. Yet, you can’t stop watching. Mainly because of Waltz’s electrifying performance, but also because of the film’s high-gloss look, which puts a Dickensian sheen on even the direst situations.

You also keep hoping against hope that Lawrence and writer Richard LaGravenese (“Bridges of Madison County”) are building toward a climax that will knock Witherspoon and Pattison’s pants off. But we’re even deprived of that, as Lawrence rushes through the pinnacle set piece without grandeur or scope. Blink and you just might miss it.

It’s about as frustrating and inexplicable as the decision to let Pattinson serve as the narrator, even though the movie begins with a very old Jacob (well-played by Hal Holbrook) recounting his stupefyingly dull tale to a young circus boss (Paul Schneider) as part of a framing device scavenged directly off the “Titanic.”

Alas, no king of the world this time. More like a weak gesture.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (PG-13 for some sexual situations and off-camera animal abuse.) Cast includes Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz. Directed by Francis Lawrence. 1.5 stars out of 4.

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